


The Body

by adadshi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Autopsies, Canonical Character Death, Conspiracy Theories, Conspiracy Theorist Keith (Voltron), Corpse Desecration, Galaxy Garrison, Gaslighting, Graphic Description of Corpses, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Inspired by Stranger Things (TV 2016), Iverson (Voltron) Being an Asshole, M/M, Medication, Paranoia, Post-Kerberos Mission, Presumed Dead, Violent Thoughts, Vomiting, idk this is a vent fic dont think too much about it lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29343435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adadshi/pseuds/adadshi
Summary: The Garrison tells him he's crazy for doubting the circumstances of Shiro's death. Keith tells him he's the only sane man left in the world.They break into a morgue for closure.-Inspired by Stranger Things S1E4 "The Body"
Relationships: Adam & Keith & Shiro (Voltron), Adam & Keith (Voltron), Adam/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	The Body

**Author's Note:**

> some more specific warnings:
> 
> \- Adam is told he's delusional for not trusting the Garrison. he's put on medication for this, but isn't allowed to know what the medication is or what it will do to him.
> 
> \- the paranoia Adam and Keith experience is from believing the Garrison have bugged their home.
> 
> \- there's some graphic imagery of corpses throughout the fic.
> 
> \- Iverson is a bit of a creep towards Adam by lying to him about the Kerberos mission and not respecting his personal space.

When the news of the Kerberos mission failure was leaked, it was class time. Adam knew something was wrong when all his students’ phones buzzed and they weren’t even scared to check the notification despite his strict phone policy. Their blue illuminated faces looked up at him with pity and fear, causing his heart to sink. 

“Settle down, please.” he tried. But the students, who were usually so well behaved, were now acting impossible. Their whispers sowed seats of panic in Adam’s mind. Even when he battered the eraser against the blackboard, creating a large cloud of white chalk particles and horrible, loud noises, they wouldn’t settle. 

When Adam heard one of them whisper _Kerberos_ , he knew that he had to become involved. He rifled through his bag for his smartphone and frantically refreshed his emails. Again and again, he dragged his finger down to refresh his inbox, but nothing arrived. The students’ whispers sounded louder and louder, making him only more panicked. Adam swiped through every app he had desperately trying to figure out what was happening.

He looked up at his class, eyes wide and dilated, and that was when he saw the black-haired cadet rushing past his door. The figure was only there for a moment, but that moment seemed to last forever. Adam could see every detail of Keith’s face: his tear-filled eyes, wobbling lips and the vein popping out of his shining forehead. As he bounded past the door’s slim window, his dark hair bounced up, then down again as his feet forcefully met the ground. The second he’d passed, Adam stood from his chair and flew out of the classroom, quickly yelling to his class, “No one leave!”

As he raced after Keith, a woman’s voice came over the PA system. In a slow and even voice, she said, “Adam Wan to the conference room, Adam Wan to the conference room. Thank you.” 

Adam could feel his heartbeat in his ears. Blood was rapidly coursing through his veins. When was the last time he’d run like this? No, he knows- it was when Shiro had collapsed on the return from the Calypso mission. His body hadn’t taken too well to being back in Earth’s atmosphere and gave out, falling limply down the ship’s runway like a dropped rag doll. Despite the Calypso crew’s return being sudden and unplanned, there were news reporters on the scene and cameras were rolling, immortalising Shiro’s body crumpling on their film forever. That’s how Adam found out about the incident- through the news because the Garrison failed to notify him of both his partner’s return and collapse. 

An anxious voice in the back of his head whispered _Something bad must’ve happened if they see it necessary to notify you, Adam._

_Shut up_ , the rational part of his brain hissed back. If there were any issues with the state of the Kerberos mission it would’ve been handled privately and sensitively. The Garrison learned their lesson last time when they had to issue a public apology for not having the necessary safety procedures in place for the Calypso crew’s reentry to Earth. They also didn’t appreciate Adam’s threat to sue on behalf of Shiro, who also didn’t like the idea of it.

“C’mon, Adam,” he’d said from his hospital bed, where he sat up attentively but still looked ghastly, “It wasn’t the Garrison’s fault that they weren’t able to intercept our messages about an early reentry. If they had, I can guarantee that none of this would’ve happened.”

Adam had glared at Commander Iverson and Commander Holt from across the hospital room. It was no secret that he was fiercely protective of Shiro and had been ever since their flight school days. Wherever Shiro went, Adam followed: that statement extended to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere and no further. 

Another thing well-known about Adam Wan was his outspoken dislike of deep space travel. There were just some things he thought humanity wasn’t advanced enough for, and deep space travel was one of those things. There was so much that could go wrong, there were numerous examples of it going wrong in the past, and somehow he ended up falling for the man who wanted nothing more than to traverse the galaxies, going further than anyone had before. That was where Adam drew the line with his devotion to Shiro.

They’d fought extensively over Kerberos. Cried about it, too. Sometimes Adam would go to bed angry, not understanding how Shiro couldn’t get the danger of the mission through his thick skull. They would sleep on the opposite edges of the bed, as far away from each other as possible, separated by the ever-expanding canyon of conflict. Other times they would bridge the gap and hold each other tightly, whispering promises of love through tears. When they loved it was powerful, when they fought it was fierce.

Adam might’ve said some unsavoury things about Shiro’s decision to go to space, some things he still stood by and some things he regretted with every fibre of his being, but he would never wish for any mission complications. He often checked in with the Kerberos mission’s ground control team for updates on the mission, though acted nonchalant about it. Despite the front he put up, everyone knew that he was to be handled gently while Shiro was away. It wasn’t easy being three billion miles away from your partner, especially when said partner had a degenerative disease with effects that would only be worsened by the impacts space had on the human body. 

Adam wiped away tears as he ran. _Don’t think about that now. Whatever is happening, Takashi will be fine. Have faith._ But Keith’s desperation made him nervous. He’d never seen the cadet move at such speeds. His boots squeaked against the shiny linoleum ground and, when he turned a corner, he skidded and banged into the lockers which lined each wall. It seemed as if he had no intention of slowing down, not even when he was confronted by a yellow stand which indicated slippery floors. Adam yelled for him to slow down, to stop and let him catch up. If Keith heard him, he showed no indication of it.

The two of them raced through the building and down into the basement. Adam had been told to head to the conference room, but there was no way he was leaving Keith. He ran with complete certainty, his heart tugging him in the right direction like an arrow to a target. Adam trusted his instincts. He’d only known the cadet for a year but in that time he’d proven himself to be a good kid, despite what his social worker and teachers said. He was also fiercely protective of Shiro. If anything had happened on the Kerberos mission, Keith had a right to know. 

That’s if he didn’t already know. The sympathetic blue faces of his students flashed in his mind.

The basement floor of the Galaxy Garrison was strictly off-limits to unauthorised personnel, which Adam and Keith were not. He’d never been down here before, though he knew Shiro had been there for discussions about the Kerberos mission and his health. Everything conducted down there was kept top secret. As they raced down the stairs one after another, Adam felt a grim feeling settle in his stomach. At the bottom of the stairs, a set of thick doors were parted. Something about them told Adam that they weren’t supposed to be left open like this.

“Out of the way, sir.” 

Adam jumped when he heard the voice. A group of paramedics were behind him, wearing their fluorescent yellow vests and holding first aid kits. They rushed ahead of Adam, separating him from Keith. Not being able to see the cadet made Adam feel slightly more lost in the new environment. The basement was dark. The overhead lights built into the ceiling tiles only spread their white light so far, leaving much of the corridor in darkness. In the distance, he could hear the several mechanical keyboards click-clacking vigorously, and angry voices that yelled back and forth. 

Following the paramedics, Adam turned the corner at the end of the corridor and was taken back by the large room he was suddenly standing in the entrance of. The room was long and wide, with a low ceiling and a back wall lined with monitors. They were all displaying quivering static. Some people were sitting at their desks with eyes wide in shock, tugging at their hair and struggling to breathe. Others were rushing back and forth from computer to computer, yelling at each other tearfully. Commander Iverson and Admiral Sanda stood nearby, talking to each other quietly. 

Adam watched as Keith launched himself at them like a feral jungle cat, yelling, “How could you?”

Instantly muscly bodyguards were tearing him off of them, though not before Keith was able to swipe at Iverson’s face. He stumbled back with a pained cry and clutched at his eye. Keith was promptly restrained and shoved out of the room. Adam watched with horror as the cadet scrambled to get past the wall of guards and back into the room, yelling, “What did you do to him? What did you do?” 

Suddenly there was a hand on Adam’s shoulder. An older woman who was smiling and wearing a lavender-coloured knitted sweater. “Adam, is it? Come with me, honey. We need to have a little chat.”

She tried to lead him away, but his feet were planted firmly against the ground. He looked past the woman to the wall of monitors. The static was changing, the little particles quivering and shifting until a blurry image began to form. The anxious staff stilled and watched in silence as they took in the footage. It was live, broadcasted from the external cameras of the Kerberos mission ship. At first, it was difficult to make out what the screen showed.

“T-Their supplies are floating away,” Adam whispered. He felt the woman’s grip on him tighten. “Someone needs to notify them.”

As the camera drifted, it gave view to a larger piece of debris floating through the dark expanse. A big chunk of metal. It was slightly crumpled as if had been crushed or had collided into something strong. The footage was still slightly crackly but it soon corrected itself, clearing the image.

Adam’s heart dropped when he made out the Galaxy Garrison crest on the side of the crushed metal. The next thing he processed was the crushed wings, then the rocket boosters which had been torn to shreds. It was the Kerberos mission ship, crushed to a pulp.

“Look! What did you go to him?” Keith screamed again. The staff were suddenly back in action, rushing from here to there, as they tried to get a handle on the situation. Several of them stumbled towards the paramedics with pale faces. Adam slowly turned to the woman and frowned at her.

“You- _what?_ ” his voice cracked. 

“You weren’t supposed to find out like this,” she said. Adam could hear the guilt and sadness in her voice. “We were going to keep you in the conference room until we figured out what had happened. We were going to break the news softly. Not- not like this.” she let a sob escape, “I am so sorry, Adam.”

Adam felt like the heavy earth above the basement was collapsing on top of him. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe. A paramedic rushed towards him, leading him away to somewhere else, but Adam couldn’t hear much of what she was saying. His vision was blurred with tears but, through the haze, he could make out Keith sobbing against the ground. 

Adam was taken by ambulance to the nearby hospital, where he spent the night recovering. He was in shock for many hours while he listened to strangers telling him about Shiro’s will, funeral processions and what exactly had happened to the Kerberos crew.

“What we currently understand to be the cause of the mission failure,” a grey-haired man told him in a soft voice, “is Shirogane’s disease. We believe that while he piloted the ship, he experienced a spasm, lost control and sadly crashed the ship into the surface of Kerberos.”

None of it made sense to Adam. When he tried to explain that the crew weren’t scheduled to do any flying for another two weeks, the man looked around the hospital room nervously before requesting that Adam received an increase in morphine. Before he lost consciousness, he thought he heard the man say to the nurse, “If he has any doubts about any of this, tell him he’s just in shock. We can’t have any more rumours flying around about this. You understand, don’t you?”

Three days after the initial failure of the Kerberos mission, it was ruled that the crew’s cause of death was pilot error. The public wasn’t satisfied with this conclusion, especially when they had in their possession a leaked audio file of the horrified screams of the Kerberos crew, which were abruptly drowned out by the large groaning and creaking of some ominous thing. The source of the leak was never found. No matter how hard the Garrison tried, they could not rid the internet of the audio file and eventually had to come out with a statement. Many found it unsatisfactory and dismissive of what was so obviously a bigger story than pilot failure. 

Adam listened to the leaked audio one week after the mission failure. Keith had shown up at his door, holding out his phone and headphones, and begged Adam to give it a listen. He’d accepted him inside warily. 

He’d figured out that this was the thing that riled his classroom up a week ago and sent Keith hurdling down to the basement. It was the spark that lit the bonfire of public outcry over the Kerberos mission. Had it not been Shiro’s mission, Adam was quite certain he would be one of the loudest voices in the backlash.

The audio file was two minutes and forty-nine seconds long. It started as a conversation between Shiro and the two others on the crew, Matt and Sam Holt, all three of them being so excited to collect ice samples from the surface of the moon, before things quickly went south. Adam squeezed his eyes shut as he listened to Shiro’s distressed yelling. His worst nightmare had come true. 

When the recording ended, Adam tugged the headphones off and looked at Keith tearily.

“Well?” he breathed out, “Why did you want me to hear that?”

“Because it makes the pilot error consensus sound crazy, right?” 

Adam frowned. “What do you think happened, Keith?”

The cadet took a seat on the couch next to Adam. He looked slightly grubby and had dark bags underneath his eyes. 

“Honestly- I’m not believing he’s dead till I see a body.”

A chill ran down Adam’s spine. He hadn’t even thought about Shiro’s body. Would it… be intact? He winced as an image of Shiro’s body blown to bits flashed in his mind. If Shiro’s body was in a good enough to condition to be retrieved, would he have to see it? Traumatic deaths always had to be formally identified, right? That’s what they said on TV. 

Identifying a body was always shown to be a morbid and emotional process on TV. The body would be lying on a sterile silver table, covered with a sheet that would be pulled back to reveal the grey corpse.

Another thought sparked in Adam’s mind- _an autopsy_. Would they cut Shiro open? Prod and poke at his insides to study him? All pink and mushy…

Something acidic rose up Adam’s throat and he scrambled off the couch to the kitchen sink, where he vomited. Keith slowly followed him and leant against the counter. When Adam was finished, he accepted the rag handed to him and wiped his mouth groggily. 

“I’m sorry.” Keith said quietly, “Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to show you that.”

Adam eyed the headphones on the couch. “No, no, it’s fine. It’s probably good that I have an understanding of what really happened out there. That things might not be as the Garrison say they are.”

The Garrison was being extremely unhelpful with supporting Adam through his grief. It seemed as if nothing had changed since the Calypso mission. He approached the Garrison several times, asking for updates into the investigation of what truly happened to the Kerberos crew, but had been turned down. The investigation had been wrapped up in less than a week and all they wanted was to put the tragedy behind them.

“It’s what Shiro would’ve wanted.” Iverson had told him.

Adam blinked and remarked, “For his death to be ignored?”

“For things to continue even in his absence. We’re going to name the next mission to deep space after him.” Iverson leaned back in his office chair and stared up at the ceiling with a faraway look as if he was seeing all the way up to the stars, “Wouldn’t he like that? To know his memory will be honoured and we’ll continue to learn about space, his greatest passion.” Iverson snapped out of his sentimental mood quickly and stared at Adam, “You have an appointment with Dr Montgomery now, don’t you? I’ll walk you and we can discuss your treatment.”

The Garrison had appointed him a counsellor named Dr Montgomery. She was nice enough, though Adam thought she scribbled too many notes during their sessions and that made him feel nervous. When he tried to talk about his growing doubt about the true cause of the Kerberos crew’s demise, she’d stiffened and scribbled down a note recommending his pharmacist medicate him. 

“She thinks I’m delusional,” Adam told Iverson as they walked. He watched Iverson’s face, looking for any indications of what he was truly feeling. “Because I have doubts about what happened out there.”

Iverson sighed, “I don’t understand what there is to doubt, Adam. If it was that audio file, it was very clearly a fake created with malicious intent. You shouldn’t let that kind of thing get to you.”

“But- it was Takashi’s voice. I know my partner’s voice, sir.”

“You know the kind of technology people have today. With only a few clips of Shirogane speaking they could make him recite the Iliad and no one would be able to tell it wasn’t real, not even you.” he stopped and put a hand on Adam’s shoulder, “You’re a smart man, Adam. I don’t want conspiracy theorists taking advantage of your grief.”

Adam saw the sudden change in Iverson’s expression, the flash of lightning behind his eyes before he leaned in close and hissed, “It’s that cadet Kogane, isn’t it? I know he’s been making up these wild theories about the Kerberos mission. We can organise a restraining order if he’s been bothering you. I can only imagine how much of a pain he must be to you.”

That made Adam frown. Keith had indeed been theorising, but it was all kept incredibly private in the guest bedroom of Adam and Shiro’s apartment. And Keith wasn’t the type of kid to go blabbering about something so serious…

“Sir, have you… bugged my apartment?”

The question landed Adam with an appointment to pick up pills later on in the day. He was not allowed to know what they are for.

That afternoon, upon arriving back home, Adam checked his apartment for any hidden microphones. He couldn’t find any, but he thought it was suspicious that one of his plants had been knocked over when the apartment had been locked all day. The pills were not taken, but he settled the little plastic capsule on his nightstand and stared at them as he tried to fall asleep.

The next morning, Adam found Keith sprawled out on the couch with his laptop on his stomach. He was click-clacking away on a forum site, no doubt theorising about the Kerberos mission. He looked around the room nervously, remembering how he’d hunted for any hidden microphones last night. He feels foolish about his paranoia now. The Garrison would never in a million years do something so invasive. That’s what he told himself.

He said good morning to Keith but was aware of how nervous he sounded.

“Morning, Adam,” Keith said, not looking up from his laptop screen. “I noticed something new about the case. You know how ships heat up during flight? The Kerberos-“

Adam quickly decided that they couldn’t risk anything. He had to protect the little investigation occurring in his apartment from the watchful eyes, snooping ears and vicious tongues that wanted to keep everything a neat little secret. He grabbed the whiteboard he usually used to write grocery lists and scribbled out a message to Keith. 

**_WE’VE BEEN BUGGED._ **

Keith’s eyes widened and he started to look around the apartment critically. Adam could practically see his heart thumping through his chest. He wrote some more and showed it to Keith.

**_IVERSON KNOWS ABOUT YOUR THEORIES. HAVE YOU TOLD ANYONE ABOUT THEM BESIDES ME?_ **

Keith snatched the pen and scribbled ** _no_**. 

They spent the entire day creeping around the apartment, fearing even to breathe lest it made a noise too loud. Keith unscrewed every single lightbulb to check inside the screw base for any hidden microphones, while Adam took apart the landline phone. Once the phone was disassembled (with no microphone found), he couldn’t figure out to put it back together again. Perhaps it was for the best. They tore apart cushions and pillows, not trusting even them to be safe. 

**_maybe_** , Keith wrote many hours into the hunt, **_we should ask them to stop spying on us. or feed them false information_**. The two of them were sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall, staring at the ransacked apartment. They’d been at this for hours and had found nothing. Adam couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing. How else would Iverson know about Keith’s theorising? Adam wouldn’t put it past the Garrison to bug their place, especially if the Kerberos crew’s fate wasn’t what it seemed. What organisation needed a basement for top secret meetings if they didn’t have a few skeletons in their closet?

Adam wrote back **_I MISS TAKASHI_**. 

While Shiro would probably be just as clueless as them in this sort of situation, Adam knew that his mere presence would make them feel better. His touch was like magic: holding his hand could make all of Adam’s worries disappear. If he squeezed his eyes shut and thought hard enough, he could almost hear Shiro’s shallow breathing as if he was only asleep in the bedroom.

“I think I’m going crazy,” Adam whispered. 

Keith replied, “I think we’re the only sane people left around here.”

But did sane people spend hours tearing apart their apartments, fuelled by paranoia? 

“Break for dinner then we can look again?” Keith suggested. Adam nodded and got to his feet. He would spend the rest of his life searching if it would put their minds at ease.

Exactly one hundred days after the Kerberos mission failed, the bodies of Takashi Shirogane, Matt Holt and Sam Holt were brought back to Earth. The news almost sent Adam into shock. He had heard nothing about a mission to retrieve their bodies and could barely believe that they could be in a salvageable state. 

While he’d stopped pestering Iverson so often, he still innocently asked him about the leaked audio file every now and then. Iverson hated remembering the leak and berated him for focusing on it. Even the slightest mention of it made him defensive and angry. Sometimes he scared Adam.

“This obsession will not help with overcoming your grief, Adam.” He said sternly, “It’s best to forget and move on. Shirogane wouldn’t want you to spend the rest of your life like this, would he?”

Moving on was a sentiment Dr Montgomery shared. Adam didn’t trust her enough to express his paranoia about his apartment possibly (most definitely) being bugged, but he told her about his grief and loneliness. She would listen to that quietly, but the second Adam started to display doubts about the Kerberos mission, she would call it a delusion and prescribe him more pills. His nightstand now had twenty pill capsules sitting on it, all of them unopened. 

But when the email detailing morgue etiquette arrived, Adam knelt in front of the capsules like they were a shrine. Maybe they would stop the shaking in his hands. He picked one container up and turned it in his hands. The plastic was smooth. The white label had minimal details on it: there was his name and the instructions for taking the pills. Three in the morning, three at night, all to be washed down with water. Nothing about what they did or side effects to look out for. Maybe they would give him some relief. Stop the flashing images in his head.

Images of his Takashi, lying on a silver table, drained of the beautiful spirit that made him the man Adam loved. Would he be lighter with his soul in heaven? Limp? Or would he be frozen with blue lips and frost on his delicate eyelashes? Would the mortician pull back the sheet and reveal a headless thing? Would there be an ounce of blood left in those dead veins?

Adam clutched his head. _Get out, get out, get out_. More bright flashes exploded in his mind. He was marrying a corpse, he was kissing a corpse, _get out of my head_. 

Adam coughed and spluttered while he swallowed down six pills, but it was worth it. They numbed the pain. He slept on the floor without a single bad thought in his mind. No good thoughts, either. The emptiness was welcomed. 

The empty feeling continued into the next afternoon when Adam was walking to the morgue. There were reporters outside of the building, running towards him with microphones outstretched, but Keith tugged him inside. There were many Garrison staff members there, including Commander Iverson and Dr Montgomery. Adam did not question why he and Keith were both patted down and processed with security x-rays before they could proceed past the front entrance.

The mortician who welcomed them was very nice. She wore a black dress and told them she was sorry about their loss.

“Don’t worry, though,” she said, “the man who did the autopsy was very good. I knew him back in mortuary school before he went to work at the Garrison.”

Adam saw how Keith stiffened. 

“You- you didn’t conduct the autopsy?”

The woman shook her head and replied, “No, it wasn’t anyone here. The Galaxy Garrison thought it would be best that Mr Shirogane was handled by one of their own. The body is only being stored here until memorial arrangements are made.”

Adam felt dizzy as he was lead into a small, rectangular room. He could feel Iverson and Montgomery’s eyes boring into him. On one of the longer sides of the room, there was a wide window which looked into a second room. And in that room was the dreaded scene. It was almost exactly as Adam’s nightmares conjured it up in his sleep.

“I was hoping we could get a bit closer,” Keith said to the woman. Her eyes flickered towards Iverson and, when she opened her mouth to answer, he spoke over her.

“Shirogane’s body is too radioactive to spend more than a few minutes with.” He said. Something about that didn’t sound right to Adam, but he was too tired to think about it. 

A person in a Garrison-orange radiation suit came into the secondary room. They approached the lump on the metal table and removed the white sheet which covered it. Then they left, leaving the corpse alone in the room.

Even if there was a bright and colourful circus performance happening in there, Adam knew it would have no chance of distracting him from the corpse. The moment the sheet was removed, he gasped and curled in on himself, sinking to the floor. Not even all of the pills in the world could hold back the tidal wave of emotions he felt. 

When Keith asked about the official cause of death, it sounded like he was speaking from the shore and Adam was deep, deep down on the ocean floor. 

Now he’d seen Shiro, he couldn’t scrub the image of the corpse from his mind. His deathly white skin was stained with plum-coloured bruises. The back of his body was red from livor mortis. If Adam thought about it anymore, he knew it would be impossible to hold back tears. He wished more than anything that he could see Shiro one last time. One last hug, one last kiss, he’d even settle for an argument. Anything to see those beautiful brown eyes alive again.

Iverson took Adam’s hands and encouraged him to stand. His voice unnaturally soft, he said, “It’s alright to be upset, Adam. No need to be ashamed. The glass is one-way, they can’t see you.” The radiation suit person stood blankly next to the body. Iverson encouraged Adam to move closer to the glass, to get a better look. Adam hated to admit it but seeing Shiro like this- it was scary.

“Shirogane is dead. This is the last time you will ever see him. Take this time to commit him to memory.” Iverson’s breath rattled close to his ear.

Adam gulped and whispered lowly, “I think I’m done here.”

He watched Iverson nod to the mortician, who flipped a switch on the wall. When Iverson nodded to the radiation suit person, who could not see through the glass before, they were suddenly aware of them. They nodded back to Iverson and covered Shiro’s body with the white sheet again.

And that was that.

On the way home from the morgue, Adam could feel energy radiating from Keith. It felt as if he had so much to say but was holding it back. At dinner, he bounced his leg anxiously and scribbled in his notebook. Whatever he was writing, his messy penmanship kept it a secret. After a bowl of spaghetti each, Keith turned his notebook to Adam. In clearer writing, he’d put: **_we need to see Shiro again_**. 

Adam frowned and shook his head. Keith was welcome to go visit by himself, but Adam was dead set on never going near the morgue again. All he wanted was to go to pop pills and go to bed feeling numb. 

**_I CAN SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT FOR YOU BUT I WON’T COME WITH._ **

Keith sighed and sat back in his seat. He looked as if he had more to say, but Adam wasn’t in the mood to talk. 

“I’m going to bed now,” he whispered. Keith did not say goodnight.

Because it would not be the last they saw of each other that night.

In the early hours of the morning, when the world was still dark and not a soul was awake, Adam felt his shoulders being shook. He jolted awake and looked up to see Keith leaning over him ominously. He was panting slightly and there was an angry glint in his eye.

“Drive me to the morgue,” he growled. There was no room for requests in his manic mouth.

As Adam dressed, he stumbled around the dark bedroom. He could barely do up his trouser buttons his fingers were so shaky. Before he left the bedroom, he stood in the doorway and looked at the room sadly. Clouds moved away from the bright full moon, sending a pale blue light through the window and illuminating the empty pill bottles on the nightstand.

Adam left with a horrible feeling that it would be a while before he slept in his bed again.

Keith was dressed in black, with a cropped red jacket. He clutched a knife in his hand and twirled it while they drove to the morgue. Streetlights flickered on either side of the empty highway. It was like they were the only two people in the world, but Adam still felt paranoid. Like a Garrison helicopter would suddenly swoop in on them and they would find the next bridge would be barricaded by Garrison cars and officers brandishing blaster guns pointed straight at them. 

Adam took a deep breath and said, “We’re just looking.” Then he quickly added, “Right?” 

“Right,” Keith said, sounding very far away. Adam could practically hear the cogs turning in his head.

They parked a few blocks away from the morgue. As they walked, Adam kept his head down and distracted himself by trying not to step on any cracks on the sidewalk. He could hear how shaky his breathing was. Keith, on the other hand, seemed perfectly calm, if anything he seemed slightly excited about this impromptu excursion in a wild, devious sort of way. 

Keith lead Adam round to the back of the morgue, where he spent some time inspecting the ground floor windows. While he waited, Adam stood still and rubbed his arms to generate some warmth. Why was it so cold tonight? He thought it was probably as cold as the morgue’s freezers…

He was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of glass shattering. Keith rubbed his elbow and then started to wriggle in through the entrance he’d messily created. Shards of glass crunched underneath Adam’s feet as he was helped through the window by Keith. How had that not tripped an alarm?

“We’ll be quick.” Keith whispered, “There’s just one thing I want to do.”

Something that couldn’t wait til morning? Adam suddenly realised that breaking into a morgue was very, very illegal. There’s one charge down, how many more to go?

He grabs Keith’s arm and whispers, “We can turn back now. Go home and never speak about this again.”

Keith snatched his arm back and glared at him. “We’re not going home till we know the truth. Half of the things Iverson said about Shiro’s body were complete malarky. Something is wrong with this.”

Adam stayed quiet as Keith lead him through the maze-like building. There were so many twists and turns, like the building itself was against them seeking out Shiro’s body. _Maybe you should let this go. You’re delusional, remember?_ Adam thought. Another part of him screamed out in protest: _You’re not delusional! Being so close to the truth has just become too scary. Don’t listen to Iverson, the Garrison is the enemy here._ Keith, perhaps sensing Adam’s hesitation, gripped his hand tightly. 

“Don’t you want to know the truth?” he said, “If you love Shiro you’ll want to have justice.”

Adam squeezed his hand. His love for Shiro overpowered his anxiety, and they crept creeper into the morgue.

Shiro’s body hadn’t been moved since they viewed it earlier on in the day. Keith picked the lock into the room while Adam kept an eye out for any nightshift guards. When they entered the little room, a deathly chill settled over them. It was wild to think that it wasn’t so long ago that he was standing on the other side of the one-way mirror, watching the white cloth be pulled away and trying desperately to process how his biggest fear had come true.

Keith was very delicate with Shiro. He lifted the white sheet from his body and gently carded through what remained of his hair. Adam slowly approached and put his hand on top of Shiro’s. The skin was cold, but comforting nonetheless. Knowing that his Takashi was here and would receive a good burial made Adam feel at peace. 

His stomach dropped when he noticed Keith had brought his knife out again. He twirled it in his fingers and took a few anticipatory breaths.

“Keith, wait, no-”

“There’s only one way to tell if this is real.” he mumbled, “I’m sorry if I’m wrong, Shiro.”

The knife was plunged into Shiro’s chest.

Adam screamed and covered his eyes. The image of the sharp blue blade diving into Shiro’s chest replayed over and over again in his mind, like a scratched CD which was stuck repeating the same frame. The blade entered Shiro’s pale skin so easily. There truly was no strength left in his corpse. Adam could only imagine the state of his organs. Would they already be beginning to decompose? Would they smell? Bile rose in his throat.

“A-Adam.” he heard Keith whimper, “Tell me I’m seeing this right. Tell- Tell me I’m not crazy.”

“I can’t. I can’t look at him like this. I _won’t_.” 

“Adam, this isn’t Shiro.”

Adam’s hands slipped from his eyes and fell limply to his sides. The sight before him was horrifying, disgusting- and most of all- confusing. With his knife Keith had created a slit in Shiro’s skin which he now held back with trembling hands, revealing a chest stuffed with cotton. Morbid curiosity propelled Adam to stick his hand inside the hole until he was up to his wrist in soft cotton. He pulled a handful out and examined it closely.

Keith stumbled away from the metal table and threw up in the corner of the room. His vomit hit the tiled ground with a wet splash. Between waves of sickness, he cried, “I-I knew I was right, I knew he wouldn’t be dead, but this? A fake corpse? It… it’s too far.”

Adam didn’t know what to do with the cotton he held in his hands. This certainly counted as the desecration of a corpse. He could go to prison for this. He hurriedly stuffed the cotton back into the chest and said to Keith, “Help me.”

Keith rushed over and they began to stuff fallen cotton back into the corpse’s chest. The skin felt so real but, beyond the exterior, there was nothing truthful to it. Still, Adam couldn’t help but to handle it gently. It had Shiro’s face, after all. 

Anger leaked into his panic. Why would the Garrison do this? Just to provide a happy ending to the tragedy of the Kerberos mission? Or to silence the voices that demanded the truth. Oh, Adam felt sick. Acid rose in his stomach- then rapidly fell.

… How long had they been oblivious of the two watchers spying on them behind the one-way glass? When had they revealed themselves? Adam and Keith had been caught red-handed by Commander Iverson and Dr Montgomery, who stood on the other side of the glass, with their stare as burning and vicious as the alien audience which, several lightyears away, screamed, howled and begged for Shiro’s blood, so loud that Adam thought he could hear wailing from where he stood now. Both Adam and Shiro were terrified, both were tired, and both were very, very screwed. 

**Author's Note:**

> constructive criticism is allowed and encouraged.
> 
> twitter: @adadshi


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